Thousands of unemployed Germans took to the streets in protest yesterday after the country's unemployment figure reached a new post-war record of almost five million.
Forming human chains and chanting slogans denouncing the Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, protesters surrounded unemployment offices throughout the country.
Imitating their counterparts in France, a group of unemployed people in Frankfurt briefly occupied a government building. Police clashed with demonstrators in Berlin during an attempt to storm the fashionable Hotel Adlon near the Brandenburg Gate.
German unemployment rose by 300,000 last month to 4.82 million, or 12.6 per cent of the workforce. In the formerly communist east of the country, more than one worker in five is without a job.
Opposition leaders blamed Dr Kohl's government, accusing the Chancellor of failing to take any steps to encourage firms to take on more employees. Many of Germany's biggest companies are reporting record profits, but most complain that high tax and social insurance costs make labour too expensive.
Mr Wolfgang Schauble, parliamentary leader of the governing Christian Democrats, insisted that the opposition shared the blame for Germany's unemployment problem because they refused to support a government plan to reform the tax system.
Most of the protesters on the streets yesterday vented their anger at the government and a crowd in Berlin chanted, "Kohl must go". The protest campaign will continue until Germany's general election on September 27th with nationwide demonstrations each month when the unemployment figures are announced.
Protesters in Bremen hung job applications on a rope 50 metres long and a group of unemployed actors in Stuttgart performed a sketch called "Congratulations to the five millionth unemployed person".
The demonstrations, which took place in more than 200 German cities and towns, were supported by trade unionists, church groups and the Green party.
The largest, and angriest, protests were in the east of the country, where unemployment is now twice as high as in the west. Hundreds of loss-making industries in the east were closed down following German unification in 1990.
Persistently high unemployment is damaging Dr Kohl's chances of winning a record fifth term in office at September's election. An opinion poll published yesterday shows his centre-right coalition trailing the opposition alliance of Social Democrats and Greens by nine percentage points.
